This weekend I rented some movies and stayed in. They were wildly different choices, but my taste is nothing, if not eclectic.
Doom
This is a shoot-em-up monster movie based on the video game. I loved Doom and spent many hours playing it. Since my PC died I can't play it at home, but I still occasionally play it at work. This movie got generally quite bad reviews, but I wanted to see it anyway. I thought that if I went into it with sufficiently low expectations, I would not be disappointed. As it turned out, that wasn't entirely true.
The movie doesn't bear all that much resemblance to the video game, and so I was disappointed. On the other hand, it is a fairly engaging shoot-em-up monster movie. It stars The Rock (apparently he's a wrestler? I dunno) as a hard-nosed marine sergeant and Karl Urban as one of the guys on his force. They, along with the rest of their taskforce, are sent to Mars to investigate when something goes terribly wrong at a scientific facility. They wander around in the dark a lot and get picked off one by one until only the two of them remain.
I appreciated the fact that Urban's tension with the token female on the cast was that of estranged siblings rather than romantic tension. The whole movie takes place over a six-hour period, which is too short to form any sort of believable romantic entanglement. There is also one scene near the end that is filmed entirely as a first-person shooter in the style of Doom. That was great, but I'm sorry we had to wait so long before the movie started looking like the game. Likewise, the basic nature of their foes has changed: it isn't an invasion by the hordes of Hell, it's a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.
Overall, I found it actually pretty entertaining, though also a bit disappointing because it could have been better. Though any film that features Karl Urban looking grim is okay with me.
A Prairie Home Companion
This one, of course, was made by Robert Altman and centers around Garrison Keillor's radio program. In the movie, the radio station has been bought by a corporation from Texas, and the show is going to be shut down. It resembles the real radio program, but isn't quite the same.
For one thing, they brought in a bunch of actors to be the folks on the radio show. Garrison is there, of course, and so is his band. Show regulars Sue Scott and Tim Russell have tiny roles as backstage help. It was nice to see them there, but it was too bad we didn't see more of them. The movie-PHC had a lot more music than the real-PHC has. It was missing the narratives and monologues which I consider to be the best parts of the real-PHC. Instead we just got musical number after musical number, most of it the down-home bluegrass and cloying gospels that Garrison loves.
Kevin Kline was playing Guy Noir, Private Eye, who worked at the theater as a security man. He was quite good. Woody Harelson and John C. Reilly were a hoot as the Singing Cowboys, Dusty and Lefty. The guys were funny, and they could sing. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin were the Johnson Sisters, a pair of faded old performers who were soppy and sentimental. Lindsay Lohan played Meryl Streep's daughter who is obsessed with death. We also got a few performances from Twin Cities musicians Robin and Linda Williams, Prudence Johnson, and Jearlyn Steele, which was really nice. However, having professional musicians on also made it very clear that the musical caliber of the actors was much lower than you'd find on the real PHC. The Johnson Sisters, especially, just weren't very good.
So, like Doom, this movie was pretty enjoyable, but also disappointing because it left out the best things of the show it tries to portray.
And I bet I'm the only person out here in the blogosphere who is comparing Doom and A Prairie Home Companion, and finding them similar.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Archangel Protocol by Lyda Morehouse
It took me five years and three attempts to get through this book. Overall, I'd have to say it wasn't worth the effort.
Archangel Protocol begins with a tired cliche: the ex-cop PI, sitting in his office with a stack of unpaid bills and very little business, until one day a good-looking client walks in with a problem. Morehouse has twisted this slightly: the ex-cop PI is a woman, and the good-looking client is male. Further, it's set in the year 2076, in which the US has become a Catholic theocracy and one of the candidates running for president claims to be the Second Coming. And people actually believe him.
Personally, I really didn't buy into the setting. It's a quite unpleasant place, and it's made abundantly clear right from the beginning that religious oppression is Bad. It's also mildly weird that there are apparently no Protestants in this world except for the Unitarians. The backstory involved some sort of war which the US lost, and involved nuking Brooklyn. I really didn't care, but that's not unrelated to the fact I didn't believe it for a moment.
Our protagonist, Deidre McMannus (What a godawful name. Why do fantasy writers so often saddle their characters with Celtic names? I have found that to be a negative indicator of quality) has absolutely no sense of self-preservation, and is thoroughly unlikeable, as well. Example: she's been arrested and is facing prison time, unless they just kill her instead. There is a power outage, and someone breaks into the room to rescue her. Instead of getting out of there as fast as possible, she starts arguing with her rescuer. Then she decides that, while she's in the police station, she'd like to find some old case files before attempting to escape. A few minutes later, as her rescuer is asking for directions to get them out of the police station, she refuses because she thinks she doesn't like him, after all. I realize that not everyone in the world is logical, but some people are just too stupid to be allowed to continue to live, and Deidre McMannus is one of them.
The plot mostly consists of Deidre falling from one crisis or action scene to another, rarely eating and sleeping even less. Periodically she does something very stupid. It's also interesting how the apparently friendless PI from the beginning of the story is now pulling in huge favors from old friends. And the sex scene would have been much better if there had been a lot less description. 'Nuff said.
The writing is also fairly inconsistent. If I had to guess, I'd say the beginning got a lot more polishing than the rest of the book. In the beginning, everything is described. Every motion, every sensation. We are told what the coffee maker feels like when Deidre turns it on. Later in the book she gets shot in the shoulder, and Morehouse never tells us *which* shoulder. I consider that a much more relevant detail than how smooth the coffee maker was against her fingers as she reached for the switch. The dialogue is pretty dire in places, too.
I haven't quite finished the book, but I'm close to the end. I don't think the ending will affect my review, since I stopped caring what happened around page 100. Nevertheless, I will finish it, since the end is near and I can skim pretty quickly. Needless to say, I won't be looking for the next one. And it's too bad, really, because I wanted to like it.
Archangel Protocol begins with a tired cliche: the ex-cop PI, sitting in his office with a stack of unpaid bills and very little business, until one day a good-looking client walks in with a problem. Morehouse has twisted this slightly: the ex-cop PI is a woman, and the good-looking client is male. Further, it's set in the year 2076, in which the US has become a Catholic theocracy and one of the candidates running for president claims to be the Second Coming. And people actually believe him.
Personally, I really didn't buy into the setting. It's a quite unpleasant place, and it's made abundantly clear right from the beginning that religious oppression is Bad. It's also mildly weird that there are apparently no Protestants in this world except for the Unitarians. The backstory involved some sort of war which the US lost, and involved nuking Brooklyn. I really didn't care, but that's not unrelated to the fact I didn't believe it for a moment.
Our protagonist, Deidre McMannus (What a godawful name. Why do fantasy writers so often saddle their characters with Celtic names? I have found that to be a negative indicator of quality) has absolutely no sense of self-preservation, and is thoroughly unlikeable, as well. Example: she's been arrested and is facing prison time, unless they just kill her instead. There is a power outage, and someone breaks into the room to rescue her. Instead of getting out of there as fast as possible, she starts arguing with her rescuer. Then she decides that, while she's in the police station, she'd like to find some old case files before attempting to escape. A few minutes later, as her rescuer is asking for directions to get them out of the police station, she refuses because she thinks she doesn't like him, after all. I realize that not everyone in the world is logical, but some people are just too stupid to be allowed to continue to live, and Deidre McMannus is one of them.
The plot mostly consists of Deidre falling from one crisis or action scene to another, rarely eating and sleeping even less. Periodically she does something very stupid. It's also interesting how the apparently friendless PI from the beginning of the story is now pulling in huge favors from old friends. And the sex scene would have been much better if there had been a lot less description. 'Nuff said.
The writing is also fairly inconsistent. If I had to guess, I'd say the beginning got a lot more polishing than the rest of the book. In the beginning, everything is described. Every motion, every sensation. We are told what the coffee maker feels like when Deidre turns it on. Later in the book she gets shot in the shoulder, and Morehouse never tells us *which* shoulder. I consider that a much more relevant detail than how smooth the coffee maker was against her fingers as she reached for the switch. The dialogue is pretty dire in places, too.
I haven't quite finished the book, but I'm close to the end. I don't think the ending will affect my review, since I stopped caring what happened around page 100. Nevertheless, I will finish it, since the end is near and I can skim pretty quickly. Needless to say, I won't be looking for the next one. And it's too bad, really, because I wanted to like it.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
This weekend I finally finished the sweater I was working on over the summer. It was all knit, I just hadn't woven in the ends or blocked it. It is now finished. It's a hooded sweater pattern out of Stitch N Bitch. I did it in a cotton/wool blend, and it really isn't quite as lumpy as the photo makes it look.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Firefly
I realize that I may be the last science fiction fan in the US who hadn't seen Firefly, but I hadn't. There are various reasons for this:
1) I am a fan of written SF, but mostly not of TV SF, so I don't bother to follow it.
2) I don't watch network television, with the exception of an occasional sporting event.
3) I worked nights for seven years, during which time I didn't catch any prime time television.
4) I mentally associate Joss Whedon with Buffy, which I can't stand. I heard of Firefly, but vaguely assumed it was another Buffy spinoff.
However, though I don't usually like TV SF, I occasionally like SF movies. A couple of weeks ago I saw Serenity, and enjoyed it very much. That led me to buy the whole series of Firefly, since it was on sale and there were two people ahead of me on the waiting list to borrow the library's copies and I didn't feel like waiting. When it arrived I set it aside to watch when I was riding my trainer, because I hate riding my trainer, and need some incentive to do it.
This morning I climbed on the trainer and started watching the pilot, and I was hooked. When I was done riding, I decided to watch the rest of the episode, and when it was done, I decided to watch the next. This continued all through the day, and I have just now finished watching the entire series and all the extras that came with it.
Overall, I think it was a pretty good way to spend a snowy Sunday.
I came at this a bit backward, having seen the movie before the TV show, and I kept waiting for River to step up and kick some ass. Alas, that mostly was not to be. The show reinforced my previous thought that Inara was an annoying and pointless character. I didn't like every single episode, and think that the shootout at the whorehouse was the lowpoint of the series. Nevertheless, overall, it was quite enjoyable. But it wasn't as good as Serenity.
1) I am a fan of written SF, but mostly not of TV SF, so I don't bother to follow it.
2) I don't watch network television, with the exception of an occasional sporting event.
3) I worked nights for seven years, during which time I didn't catch any prime time television.
4) I mentally associate Joss Whedon with Buffy, which I can't stand. I heard of Firefly, but vaguely assumed it was another Buffy spinoff.
However, though I don't usually like TV SF, I occasionally like SF movies. A couple of weeks ago I saw Serenity, and enjoyed it very much. That led me to buy the whole series of Firefly, since it was on sale and there were two people ahead of me on the waiting list to borrow the library's copies and I didn't feel like waiting. When it arrived I set it aside to watch when I was riding my trainer, because I hate riding my trainer, and need some incentive to do it.
This morning I climbed on the trainer and started watching the pilot, and I was hooked. When I was done riding, I decided to watch the rest of the episode, and when it was done, I decided to watch the next. This continued all through the day, and I have just now finished watching the entire series and all the extras that came with it.
Overall, I think it was a pretty good way to spend a snowy Sunday.
I came at this a bit backward, having seen the movie before the TV show, and I kept waiting for River to step up and kick some ass. Alas, that mostly was not to be. The show reinforced my previous thought that Inara was an annoying and pointless character. I didn't like every single episode, and think that the shootout at the whorehouse was the lowpoint of the series. Nevertheless, overall, it was quite enjoyable. But it wasn't as good as Serenity.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Finished Object
Here are the arm warmers I finished last night. I realize they're not very exciting-looking, but I'm pleased with them. The sleeves on my winter coat are a bit short and are quite wide, so my arms get cold in bitterly cold weather. It's that time of year now, and I decided to do something about it. I knitted them out of charcoal Peruvian wool. They're a bit scratchy, but very warm.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Africa Zero by Neal Asher
This is one of Asher's older works, originally published in 2001. It was recently issued in the US by Cosmos Books. Asher's publishing history in the US is a bit piecemeal--Tor have published some of them, Night Shade published Prador Moon, and now Africa Zero has been put out by Cosmos. Furthermore, Tor are a bit erratic--they published Gridlinked, skipped the next book, Polity Agent, and are now doing the third book, Brass Man. It makes no sense to me, and Neal doesn't know their reasoning, either. They also published The Skinner, but thus far haven't done the sequel, The Voyage of Sable Keech. The prequel, Prador Moon, was published by Night Shade. It's very odd, and very frustrating to me, as I like his work.
Africa Zero is small at 166 pages, and is really two novellas rather than a novel. Both feature The Collector, a long-lived cyborg superman sort of fellow. Set on a distant-future Earth in the middle of an ice age, most of humanity has left the planet. The Collector roams the world, trying to maintain a good balance of biodiversity. He has re-introduced the Woolly Mammoth, and also created the Great Aftrican Vampire to keep the human population down to a manageable number. He is also the majority shareholder in a couple of the giant corporations that dominate the economy, on earth and off, though he rarely interferes with them unless he needs to.
These are action-filled adventures with lots of explosions. If you like that sort of thing, it may be for you. I found it mostly fairly enjoyable, but also obviously less mature than his more recent work. One thing caught my attention, though: you know how writers repeat themselves? Sometimes a writer has a phrase or fact or reference that keeps popping up in their work, like Harlan Ellison's repeated references to Shangri-la. Well, Asher likes to mention that when you're torturing someone you should hang them upside down because they're less likely to faint that way, and therefore suffer more. You might be surprised how often he has cause to mention that.
So, essentially: a short, fairly fun romp that is not one of his best works, but is pretty entertaining. This one is probably only essential for raving Asher fans like me.
Africa Zero is small at 166 pages, and is really two novellas rather than a novel. Both feature The Collector, a long-lived cyborg superman sort of fellow. Set on a distant-future Earth in the middle of an ice age, most of humanity has left the planet. The Collector roams the world, trying to maintain a good balance of biodiversity. He has re-introduced the Woolly Mammoth, and also created the Great Aftrican Vampire to keep the human population down to a manageable number. He is also the majority shareholder in a couple of the giant corporations that dominate the economy, on earth and off, though he rarely interferes with them unless he needs to.
These are action-filled adventures with lots of explosions. If you like that sort of thing, it may be for you. I found it mostly fairly enjoyable, but also obviously less mature than his more recent work. One thing caught my attention, though: you know how writers repeat themselves? Sometimes a writer has a phrase or fact or reference that keeps popping up in their work, like Harlan Ellison's repeated references to Shangri-la. Well, Asher likes to mention that when you're torturing someone you should hang them upside down because they're less likely to faint that way, and therefore suffer more. You might be surprised how often he has cause to mention that.
So, essentially: a short, fairly fun romp that is not one of his best works, but is pretty entertaining. This one is probably only essential for raving Asher fans like me.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Monday, January 8, 2007
Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill
In many ways, Disco for the Departed is a fantasy novel masquerading as a mystery. There is also a mystery, but it is not as important as the supernatural elements.
The novel is placed in a setting which will be quite foreign to many readers--Laos in 1978. The war is over, and the nation is struggling to settle into the new routines of life as a communist nation. They are allied with Russia, Vietnam, and Cuba, but they don't necessarily work well together. Corruption is just as common as it was before the war, simply with different people taking advantage of the system.
Dr. Siri Paiboun is the national coroner of Laos, and is called to investigate the discovery of a body encased in concrete. He and his nurse, Dtui, perform an autopsy, and later discover a second body. The local security chief was chosen for his ideology rather than his detection skills, and is pleased to give them a free hand to investigate on their own.
Dr. Siri is a shaman, carrying the spirit of a departed ancestor, who was once a powerful shaman himself. Consequently, Siri frequently has conversations with dead people. Likewise, some of the Cubans who have been helping out at the local hospital have been practicing voodoo. The entire book is filled with ghosts, sacrifices, and disco-dancing dead people.
I rather enjoyed the book, and found the setting more interesting than I expected. It was not written by a Lao, and I have no idea how accurate the setting is. The characters are not particularly believable, but they're entertaining. On the other hand, I think I've had about as much of Siri and Dtui as I can stand, and probably won't read any others in the series.
The novel is placed in a setting which will be quite foreign to many readers--Laos in 1978. The war is over, and the nation is struggling to settle into the new routines of life as a communist nation. They are allied with Russia, Vietnam, and Cuba, but they don't necessarily work well together. Corruption is just as common as it was before the war, simply with different people taking advantage of the system.
Dr. Siri Paiboun is the national coroner of Laos, and is called to investigate the discovery of a body encased in concrete. He and his nurse, Dtui, perform an autopsy, and later discover a second body. The local security chief was chosen for his ideology rather than his detection skills, and is pleased to give them a free hand to investigate on their own.
Dr. Siri is a shaman, carrying the spirit of a departed ancestor, who was once a powerful shaman himself. Consequently, Siri frequently has conversations with dead people. Likewise, some of the Cubans who have been helping out at the local hospital have been practicing voodoo. The entire book is filled with ghosts, sacrifices, and disco-dancing dead people.
I rather enjoyed the book, and found the setting more interesting than I expected. It was not written by a Lao, and I have no idea how accurate the setting is. The characters are not particularly believable, but they're entertaining. On the other hand, I think I've had about as much of Siri and Dtui as I can stand, and probably won't read any others in the series.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman writes short books, and that's one of the things I like about him. He is capable of telling a complete story in 300 pages. One of the reasons he can do this is because his writing is tight and clean—there is no flab to slow it down. I wish other writers (particularly those writing quest fantasy) would follow his example.
Old Twentieth is an entertaining story. Set a few hundred years in our future, humanity has reached immortality from natural causes. An apparently habitable planet has been discovered light years from earth, and 800 people, risk-takers or those bored with life on earth, set off on a centuries-long journey to reach the planet and see if it's habitable. Since they are immortals, they will need something to keep them occupied on their journey. So, they all have jobs on the ship, and many recreational opportunities are provided, from movies to kayaking to a trip in virtual reality.
The protagonist of the novel, Jacob, is a virtual reality engineer. He maintains the cyberspace where people take jaunts into the twentieth century. Pick a year, and a place, and you can wander around and have adventures. Get bored? Think of somewhere else, and you can go to another place on earth, so long as you stay in the same year. It is both entertainment and education for the clients, an opportunity to explore the past and experience things you would never find in the present. However, Jacob has noticed some strange things going on in the machine, and then discovers that the computer wants to talk to him about it.
The scenes in virtual reality are the best part of this novel. I think that Haldeman probably enjoyed doing the research, and I certainly enjoyed reading the scenes in the past. We visit Gallipoli in World War I, wander around the 1939 World's Fair, visit a New York City night club in 1929, and tromp through the jungles of Viet Nam.
There is a twist at the end, of course, and one big mystery was not resolved in a satisfactory manner, but overall I found this to be an entertaining and absorbing read. This was a great way to start out the new year.
Old Twentieth is an entertaining story. Set a few hundred years in our future, humanity has reached immortality from natural causes. An apparently habitable planet has been discovered light years from earth, and 800 people, risk-takers or those bored with life on earth, set off on a centuries-long journey to reach the planet and see if it's habitable. Since they are immortals, they will need something to keep them occupied on their journey. So, they all have jobs on the ship, and many recreational opportunities are provided, from movies to kayaking to a trip in virtual reality.
The protagonist of the novel, Jacob, is a virtual reality engineer. He maintains the cyberspace where people take jaunts into the twentieth century. Pick a year, and a place, and you can wander around and have adventures. Get bored? Think of somewhere else, and you can go to another place on earth, so long as you stay in the same year. It is both entertainment and education for the clients, an opportunity to explore the past and experience things you would never find in the present. However, Jacob has noticed some strange things going on in the machine, and then discovers that the computer wants to talk to him about it.
The scenes in virtual reality are the best part of this novel. I think that Haldeman probably enjoyed doing the research, and I certainly enjoyed reading the scenes in the past. We visit Gallipoli in World War I, wander around the 1939 World's Fair, visit a New York City night club in 1929, and tromp through the jungles of Viet Nam.
There is a twist at the end, of course, and one big mystery was not resolved in a satisfactory manner, but overall I found this to be an entertaining and absorbing read. This was a great way to start out the new year.
Monday, January 1, 2007
2006: A Year of Reading
Being a geek, I keep a reading log of the books I complete each year. I count only the books I complete, and only those that are new to me--re-reads don't count, though I do re-read. I find it's very handy to have a list, as I otherwise wouldn't be able to remember what I read last week. Being a numbers-obsessed geek, I like to refer back to my lists and analyse them.
I did a post on this topic last spring, when I realized that I was on a pace to read 100 books this year. I didn't reach that goal, though--I only read 75 books this year, which is pretty average. (My last few years have been 64, 78, 71, 100, and 72). In fact, I pushed through Second Foundation yesterday so that I could record it in 2006 and get to a nice round total for the year.
I found 2006 a disappointing reading year, which is probably why I didn't reach 100 books. When I'm reading great books I zip through them, reading whenever I have a few minutes to spare. When I'm reading books that aren't so great, they have to compete with other pastimes, such as knitting, riding my bike, or spending too much time on my computer. There was also the Fiction Interregnum of the autumn, when for two solid months I found myself unable to read a novel. I eventually gave in and started reading nonfiction, but it took a while for me to figure out what was going on. Looking back over my list for the year, I see very few books that I loved. I first realized this problem when SF Site was soliciting ballots from readers for the best books of 2006, and I realized that I had nothing to contribute--none of the new books I read this year were that great. Neither were most of the old books I read.
So, here are the numbers:
75 books completed
13 mysteries, 20 fantasy, 18 science fiction, 13 nonfiction
My favorite reads of the year:
K.J. Parker's trilogy consisting of Shadow, Pattern, and Memory. Good, dark, crunchy, violent fantasy with a good mystery in it.
This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman. An exciting SFnal romp with a good mystery in it.
Surgeon on Iwo by James Vedder. An account of Iwo Jima, written by a doctor with the 27th Marines. Very vivid and intense stuff.
Gil's All-Fright Diner and In The Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez. Good light comedic fantasy.
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. It was his first novel and is a bit slow to start, but the last third is very, very entertaining.
Here's hoping that 2007 is a good year.
I did a post on this topic last spring, when I realized that I was on a pace to read 100 books this year. I didn't reach that goal, though--I only read 75 books this year, which is pretty average. (My last few years have been 64, 78, 71, 100, and 72). In fact, I pushed through Second Foundation yesterday so that I could record it in 2006 and get to a nice round total for the year.
I found 2006 a disappointing reading year, which is probably why I didn't reach 100 books. When I'm reading great books I zip through them, reading whenever I have a few minutes to spare. When I'm reading books that aren't so great, they have to compete with other pastimes, such as knitting, riding my bike, or spending too much time on my computer. There was also the Fiction Interregnum of the autumn, when for two solid months I found myself unable to read a novel. I eventually gave in and started reading nonfiction, but it took a while for me to figure out what was going on. Looking back over my list for the year, I see very few books that I loved. I first realized this problem when SF Site was soliciting ballots from readers for the best books of 2006, and I realized that I had nothing to contribute--none of the new books I read this year were that great. Neither were most of the old books I read.
So, here are the numbers:
75 books completed
13 mysteries, 20 fantasy, 18 science fiction, 13 nonfiction
My favorite reads of the year:
K.J. Parker's trilogy consisting of Shadow, Pattern, and Memory. Good, dark, crunchy, violent fantasy with a good mystery in it.
This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman. An exciting SFnal romp with a good mystery in it.
Surgeon on Iwo by James Vedder. An account of Iwo Jima, written by a doctor with the 27th Marines. Very vivid and intense stuff.
Gil's All-Fright Diner and In The Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez. Good light comedic fantasy.
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. It was his first novel and is a bit slow to start, but the last third is very, very entertaining.
Here's hoping that 2007 is a good year.
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